What role does the past and present play in our life?

What does the past and the future do? Have you ever thought: what is the role of the past and the future? If you look at it deeply, you will realize the truth - they are meant to rob the present.

The only thing that belongs to us is the present, the now, this moment. But because the mind creates the future and tells us something about it, we get so busy thinking about the future that we forget the present. The past does exactly the same. The mind creates memories of the past and takes us to that memory, only to rob us of the present. By shuttling between the past and the future, what actually happens is that we lose the present. The only thing that belongs to us is the present. There is no past, there is no future. The past is memories; the future are thoughts.  The real challenge is not to be in the past, not to be in the future; the real challenge is to be in the ‘now,’ to live in this moment, to grab hold of what is ‘now’ and make the best of what is ‘now,’ and live ‘now.’

If only we can live in the ‘now,’ our life would be amazing, our life would be fulfilling, our life would have achieved its objective. We must shut these two doors – one door going to the past and the other going to the future, and live in the day-tight compartment; live in the moment called ‘now.’

AiR

In the book of Stewart White,called the Unobstructed Universe there is a very detailed explanation of time.
I can not claim to have a full understanding of time but on a practical level he writes that there are 3 types
of time.
1) sidereal time.Clock time.No control
2)psychological time.Time can be fast or slow mentally.So-so control over this.
3)spirit time.This is now .Complete control
This complete control of time is not given to humans.Nevertheless the future can seen by gifted seers but not influenced by these seers.
The essential point is that a spirit entity can position his/her self in time just like we can position
ourselves in space .As spirit one could travel to any point in the past and observe it.Thus the ability to see past lives.The future is a bit hazy.It can be seen but I do not
know how free spirit is to influence the future.
For us humans who live this corporeal life,
it is possible to live from the now if one is able to by pass the mind.
This living is spontaneous action from the heart region.For example someone who spontaneously acts to save someone.
Regards
Stephen

I don't know. What's past is done, and we can't do anything about it.

I agree that if we spend too much thought on the future, it takes away from living in the present. But then, if we completely ignore the future: our now-future / then-present will likely be bleak if we haven't prepared for it.